Things you didn't know until very recently...

Usher has herpes.

And I just learned that we have a page for Cowbelly TV!

My new camera can shoot 360-degree panoramas.

Apparently the condition of having a white streak in your hair is called poliosis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliosis

Apparently, I sound like a cross between Linus, Finn, an Australian Rowlf, a Thomas the Tank Engine character, Joel's impersonation of Kermit, a slightly stuttering American Midwesterner, and a comedic Batman.

I know a guy that has that.

Despicable Me has surpassed Shrek as the highest-grossing animated franchise.

Corey Burton is 62.

A 92-year-old veteran of the Dunkirk evacuation watched the Dunkirk movie, and was visibly moved emotionally.

Aww.

I didn't know the lyrics to "Pumped Up Kicks", and I thought it was just a cute, innocent song about a kid wanting to have cool stuff and be like the other kids.

A literal translation of the Japanese word for lemur is "Fox-monkey".

Some jackals stay with their parents to help raise the next litter.

I have seen the lyrics to Pumped Up Kicks and still don't know what it's about

It describes the thoughts of a homicidal kid, mostly those of a higher social status than him

Cephalopods can edit their own RNA sequences.

And what relevance does that have to anyone who isn't the singer?

So are you saying that song lyrics never matter to the audience?

considering that it's about such an obscure subject and written in total gibberish...

I'll admit I hadn't heard the song before, so when I saw that post (25083) I looked the lyrics up and listened to the song. It's not gibberish at all.

Also, how is that an obscure subject? It's talking about a young person - probably a child - who fantasises of shooting the "other kids with the pumped up kicks". (From context, I assume "pumped up kicks" means expensive shoes, but I'm not a native speaker and could be wrong about this one.)

If you take the "pumped up kicks" as a marker of wealth, and by extension probably higher social status in the group than the protagonist, and combine it with the distant/absent/neglectful parent(s) implied by the lyrics of verse 2 (and the fact that Robert was able to find and steal his father's revolver), you have a neglected kid of lower social status fantasising about revenge that involves making the other kids run from his bullets - so essentially, a school shooting.

So basically it's a fairly straightforward song about a subject that was very topical at the time it was written, and still is. I mean, granted, I've only known about this song for about an hour or two, so my analysis is very rushed in that sense (and I didn't like the song enough to want to hear it again to go further into it), but at least to me, the song seemed pretty clear and relevant.

Yeah, how the hell can you call it an obscure subject when it came out around the same time as shootings like Sandy Hook? That's not obscure. If anything, that's incredibly topical. also just cause you don't understand eighth grade english skills doesnt mean the song is total gibberish to everyone, just sayin

So? I've never been in this situation, nor do I know anyone who has.

So? I've never been in this situation, nor do I know anyone who has.

Just because something didn't happen to you or anybody you know doesn't mean that it didn't happen. By that logic, would you say Columbine didn't happen just because you or anybody else wasn't shot?

I'm not saying that it didn't happen. Just that I have no attachment or relationship to something of that sort.

I have the same problem with a lot of works really. I find them way harder to get into if I can't relate to the characters in some way. It's why, say, superheroes are a hard sell to me because literally nothing is relatable.

Well, we can't keep debating about your inability to enjoy fiction every time it comes up.

Yeah. Thing is, most people are interested in stories that are about things they haven't experienced personally. I could make a decent case for the suggestion that that's actually one of the main attractions of fiction - it lets you safely, vicariously experience something that didn't (and perhaps could never) happen in your life.

We've had this conversation before, but just to reiterate the main point, it's not helpful, in any conversation with lots of participants, to nominate a given person as the one for whom everything has to be personally relevant and interesting. It seems that you've promoted yourself to this position, but you must understand that no one else does that - we don't nominate you, and we don't really even appoint ourselves, as the person that all of the posts here are directed to.

I mean, let's look at this:

Would you consider it helpful if I replied to this with something like "I don't know what 'Crystal Pepsi' is or when it was discontinued, nor do I believe this product has been made available (as of now) where I live, in Finland"? I bet you would find that comment pretty pointless. You might even argue that your post was only relevant to people who happen to care about the selection of soft drinks available where you live. That's fine: maybe someone did read your post and care about it. What you'll notice, though, is that no one actually wrote a post about how they didn't care about it. See? Everyone who read your post and found it irrelevant to them just left it alone because they don't assume that you're writing your posts specifically for them. No one asked you to justify why that post was important to them. Please reciprocate to this common courtesy.